


Love is flower-like; Friendship is a sheltering tree

by liminalweirdo, slowlimbs



Series: when we hit the city limits don't forget me for a minute (tonight) [6]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bisexual Richie Tozier, Crossdressing, Gentle ribbing, M/M, Oral Sex, Wedding Planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:28:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29109342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liminalweirdo/pseuds/liminalweirdo, https://archiveofourown.org/users/slowlimbs/pseuds/slowlimbs
Summary: Flower shops are visited, Chinese food is consumed, gender is a construct, and Richie doesn't bathe in Cristal.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: when we hit the city limits don't forget me for a minute (tonight) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1994314
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	Love is flower-like; Friendship is a sheltering tree

**Author's Note:**

> title is from 'Youth and Age' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Weeks pass and turn into months, noticeable in the mountains in a way it wouldn’t have been in LA, seasons passing in a flurry of gold leaves and silver snow outside their window. Married. Or, engaged, anyway. Richie is still wearing that stupid paper ring Eddie had made him out of the diary page the night he’d proposed, taking it off only to wash himself and dishes and the car and to sleep. Just in case the tape wears off, just in case it gets ripped.

Eddie makes him take it off if they have to go anywhere, because he doesn’t really trust the clear February wind. He thinks back to Christmas, to the little leather band that Richie measured out on his own fingers and so is far too big, hanging on a chain around his neck now. 

They’re walking hand in hand and it still thrills him. That a year ago Richie wouldn’t have been able to show this level of comfortable affection with him. Eddie doesn’t bother to tell him that, apart from his mother, he’s the only person he’s walked with linked hands with. 

“I’m just saying,” he is indeed saying as he shoulders open the door to the florists that they’re ten minutes late meeting, “I’ve done this before, so you need to be involved with some of it, okay? I want to do this with you and I don’t care if you think it’s like watching my ‘mom’s vagina dry’.” Because that’s what Richie had said the night before between the pair of them laughing and shoving leftover valentines chocolates into one another’s faces (they didn’t really celebrate, not like that, but Eddie thinks it’s better to celebrate when the chocolate is 75% off anyway), each trying to get the upper hand in an extremely romantic fireside wrestle. Richie had singed his pyjamas, and Eddie had laughed until he couldn’t breathe. “I won’t drag you to all of these. If you wanna miss the cake tasting you be my guest, pal, more for me.”

“White cake tastes like someone added sugar to the shit you sweep out from under the bed,” Richie says, “And you’re going to pick red velvet, no matter what I say.” He’s pretty aware of the fact that the woman behind the counter has been staring at them since Eddie said ‘my mom’s vagina,’ and now he’s expected to act like a genuine full grown adult in front of her. He sincerely hopes this isn’t the person they’re supposed to be meeting with. He lets go of Eddie’s hand and sidles up to the counter and the woman asks if they have an appointment and Richie says “Yeah, it’s under Edward Kaspbrak, except can we change the wedding consultation to a funeral one? Because he’s going to kill me before we’re out of here.” Richie smiles at her. He’s using his Richie Tozier Comedian Voice which is just his voice, except professional. 

“Hummingbird cake is my favourite, asshole.” Eddie says, before he’s smiling too, replacing the loss of Richie’s hand with an arm around his waist.

“Who says you’re getting a funeral? I’m just going to dump your body in the mountains and let you get devoured by the birds.” Because if Richie thinks he can embarrass him, now, at forty fucking years old, he is wrong. 

“I’m Edward. Eddie, please.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” she seems uncertain. Eddie waits until she’s turned away from them with a “please follow me” before he smacks Richie around the back of the head, not even looking at him, loafers clacking against the wooden floors.

  
Richie is still reeling over the fact that he has no idea what hummingbird cake is, and _there’s a variety of cake he hasn’t tried?_ and now he really wants to go to the stupid cake tasting, god damn it, which is ridiculous because everyone fucking knows what cake tastes like. 

He’s about to say that Eddie is so small that he couldn’t drag Richie’s body _anywhere_ , but then Eddie’s smacked him. He makes a very quiet “Ow,” and then follows him towards the back, smiling privately to himself.

The back room is sort of incredible, actually. It’s like a greenhouse, and not at all like the creepy windowless office Richie was expecting, reminiscent of the teacher’s closet-cum-office like in _The Breakfast Club_. He pushes his hands into his pockets — and notices that there’s no catch-slip of the paper and tape ring on the cloth, because Eddie makes him take it off when they go out (because neither of them want to lose it) — and looks around. They’re meeting someone else (thank christ), and she’s got this big heavy book of flowers and arrangements and Richie _desperately_ wants to nudge Eddie in the ribs and say “Oh my god, it’s Stan as a florist,” but she’s already talking.

She says something about garden roses and flowering branches, and then points to a tall vase along one of the walls that’s similar. The flowers budding on the branch are almost maroon and, below them, in a spray of white babies breath there are peonies, round and…

“Not red,” Richie says automatically, and swallows.

“No, our colour scheme isn’t that dark.” Eddie saves him with a grin, squeezing his arm on his way past him, steering the florist away from the reds and the pinks and the whites. “It’s going to be late May, so burgundy might be a bit too bright and heavy.” He looks around, looks at Richie, makes a face at him. “What colour were you thinking for the buttonholes, Trashmouth?” And to them it’s affectionate, a secret, like kisses stolen (because now they’re engaged it feels even more risky to press kisses to Richie’s mouth in places they’re not really supposed to, just to see Richie’s reaction), but she kind of looks like Eddie’s grown another head. “Maybe purple?”

Richie has no earthly idea. He likes soft colours, bright things, simply because they make him feel brighter. He likes the wooden walls of the cabin at home because they are solid and soft, somehow, no matter the weather outside. He likes the colour of the sky just before sunset, strong but muted at once. He likes the colour of things after you wipe the dust away. Like that. He doesn’t know how to translate that to flowers.

So he says. “Sure,” in the way that Eddie hates because it’s not an agreement, not really, it’s just a response, and then presses his thumb to the place the paper ring normally sits on his finger. “Or yellow.”

He’s trying.

“Could you maybe put together a few options?” Eddie asks her. “We like purple, we like yellow, no red.” Then, as an afterthought. “No sunflowers either.” He gives the lady his bestest of best smiles, then goes to Richie. “Is it okay if we look around? It might be easier that way.” Because he knows Richie is trying, and just isn’t great at working under pressure, isn’t great at pretending that Eddie doesn’t bring out a certain goblin-esque energy in him.

Eddie knows, because Eddie struggles with it too. He leads Richie away, looking up at the vines and flowers, and points. “Look it’s the same colour as your g string.”

Richie laughs out loud. Has a habit, lately, of leaning into him when he does. And he towers over Eddie, his fingers brushing his hip, ghosting over his shirt, and then gone. “I was sort of thinking they’d match your bra, Eds. You know, that nice one you wear when you take me on dates — like when the strap slips down and you flutter your eyelashes pretending you haven’t noticed, because you want me to fix it for you? Very sweet. It’s getting a little old though.” He heaves a long suffering sigh. “You know, I’m starting to think there’s just no more excitement in our lives. Should’ve waited until after we tied the knot to start fu—”

“Fuck you, then.” He mock sulks, folding his arms at him. “I’ll let Bev know you’re suddenly very interested in boobs, shall I?” Then pokes at him in the chest, dead centre. “I’ll have you know I did drag in college and I can rock lingerie and heels as well as any woman you know.” Then, leaning into him again. “Seriously. This needs to be our wedding, not just mine. Which ones do you like? Any of them? None of them? Just— go for something you like.”

But Richie’s brain has done something that feels like a flashbulb going off right behind his eyeballs. “I’m sorry, what?” he says. “Drag?” and then, smiling “No you didn’t, you liar.” Because he’s picturing Eddie in heels now and it’s a bit… oh, yeah, okay. Wow. And somewhere he’s trying to function. He is. He gravitates towards some sprigs of rosemary, tangled — fairytale-like — with hyssop and says, very seriously “Did you wear like those little stockings, with the garters?”

“Screw off, our sex life is boring remember? You don’t get told dick about what I used to get up to in corsets and stockings.” He doesn’t look at him, examining a violet, holding it against a swatch from his suit. “Mm, no…” turns to look at him, sly. “I’ll tell you all about it if you can make a decision before I decide to fucking—,” he looks around for inspiration, and points to a trowel, “scoop your brains out and match the flowers to that.”

Richie pulls a face, looking between the trowel and Eddie. “Grey?” he says. “That would never work.” Imagining Eddie matching flowers to his brains though is a welcome distraction from corsets and stockings and Eddie’s thighs which, Richie knows, are actually more than a little fantastic. He has left several marks on them with his mouth that still aren’t healed, and he knows that because of the shower this morning, hence being ten minutes late to this stupid flower meeting.

“Knowing you they’d come out fucking rainbow and make my life ten times more difficult than it already is.” Eddie is looking at yellow roses, mouth screwed up, glancing at him just in time to catch where his eyes flicker. “Does that do it for you, Trashmouth?” Arching an eyebrow, clearly amused and unoffended. “I had shorts that were smaller than my old red running ones, if that’s any help.” Because he loves this. It fucking kills him how, now that he’s allowed to, he can say anything he wants wherever he is to Richie. And it’s always like Richie isn’t expecting it. Those, he thinks, are the real chucks. Sliding something filthy into conversation just to see Richie’s reaction. Like the kisses.

And Richie’s breath actually catches in his throat and that’s so embarrassing, but not in an, _oh no everyone will know my secret_ way, more in a _why are you making me feel sex feelings in a flower shop_ way. And he hates letting Eddie just get one over on him. But even Richie isn’t Stand-Up Comedian Crass enough to say what he wants to say here, in the hearing range of a woman who has the air of a severe teacher.

So instead he just makes a noise similar to Eddie’s exasperated mouth-sounds whenever Richie said something _really_ over-the-top and turns away to the other side of the room. There’s flowers here that he doesn’t know the name of, but likes because they’re not typical or ostentatious, and they remind him of something that actually grows outside and not in a lab like the electric blue roses next to them. He says “Eddie,” and reaches out without actually touching him — they’re too far apart

Eddie is chuckling behind the back of one hand, trying to arrange his face into something appropriate because it’s just so funny, and then Richie says his name and all the humour falls away. Goes to him like a ship in a storm, like Richie is a lighthouse, and looks at the same buds.

“The freesias?” Because Eddie likes flowers, knows most of the names. “You liked the flowering rosemary too, back there…” he holds his swatch up to them and thinks. “These could work. They’re not brain coloured, but they’re pretty.”

“You’re pretty,” he says, almost absently. And it’s so stupid, but he’s _dying_ to say what he would’ve said a moment ago if they were anywhere but in this flower shop, and so he’s settling for babyish comebacks which turn into compliments anyway. He’s thinking it again now and he smiles, presses his lips together until the mounting desire fades — it’s like sometimes he can’t even stop the shit that comes out of his mouth.

“You know she’s not listening, right?” Eddie, fucking Eddie, is lowering his voice and shifting so he’s standing with his back to Richie’s front, pulling his arms around his middle. “She sees a million horny couples — boring ones, too, at that — a day. So whatever the Trashmouth is thinking the Trashmouth can whisper very softly in my ear and I’ll pretend it was something lovely and affectionate.”

And Richie has never loved anyone or anything more — he knows it, in a brief firework burst, as a fact — and he laughs soft and giddy and leans down to his ear and murmurs, in his best low and sultry: “You didn’t think I was making your life more difficult this morning, when _you_ had to call and say we’d be late, because my voice sounded too much like I’d had someone’s dick halfway down my throat.” Saying it is its own release — probably, he thinks, there’s something wrong with him, and has been since he was a kid. But he’s not Trashmouth Tozier for no reason.

Eddie giggles, and does a very good job of pretending what Richie had said was lovely and affectionate, turning in his arms to wrap his own around his neck and kiss him sweetly. “Maybe if _you_ hadn’t insisted on edging me when you fucked me in the shower we wouldn’t have been late at all.” Purred in that same tone, matching him. Always matching him.

He makes a noise like “Hrk,” and tries to wriggle away because he’s _not_ going to get a hard-on, here and now, in a fucking flower shop, while someone who reminds him of his third grade teacher throws glances their way. “You. are. the. worst,” he tells him.

“It’s pronounced 'the best', thank you very much.” Eddie has the nerve to stick his tongue out through his teeth as he smiles at him, true and bright, waiting for the woman to look away again before giving him the finger with one hand and victory pumping with the other. Then he calms himself. Resets his face in that winning Edward Kaspbrak grin, and plucks a freesia from the vase to pair it with a rosemary. “We’re thinking these, do you have anything larger to match? Natural, not chemical, preferably.”

And Richie thinks that he likes that — that weird knowing they have between them — that all the Losers kind of sort of have, that makes them able to understand one another. That Eddie knows just how to phrase the natural not chemical flowers request in a way that Richie would have stumbled over, or forgotten, even while those ghastly blue roses were right in front of him. Eds really is, Richie thinks, the best. He is, and then he’s feeling all stupid and sappy about the whole thing all over again, which happens, sometimes, since they — the engagement and he wanders away to deal with that feeling a safe distance away from Eddie whose ridiculousness and sneaky hands he doesn’t entirely trust at the moment. They leave the shop several hundred dollars lighter, Eddie practically skipping along next to him, tumbling back into bed more or less as soon as they get home.

~

Eddie thinks he’s probably never felt love like this. Spanning decades. Spanning a lifetime. He still, although Richie has insisted that he is a grown man and can do these things himself, makes breakfast for them every morning. It’s lucky really, that at Christmas Ben and Beverly had come to stay. He’s much happier helping them with various interior design jobs than he ever was doing risk analysis. It’s a plus that he can mostly do it from home, via email, his legs up on Richie’s lap as he works and Richie writes.

Eddie hands him a plate, cinnamon bun sticky, and a cup of coffee minutes after he opens his eyes. “We have the cake tasting today. We cannot be late again.” They haven’t brought up the garters and stockings again, Eddie half hopes he’s forgotten. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a surprise.

“We could just go with cinnamon buns instead of cake, and then stay in bed instead,” Richie tells him. Also it’s raining outside and bed is comfortable and warm and he sets his plate down and reaches for Eddie’s wrist instead, fingers sticky with sugar although he barely touched it. He tugs, even as he takes a sip of the coffee, and raises his eyebrows at him like _wouldn’t you like to?_ His new favourite sport is seeing how late he can make Eddie to things, and how many times. He’s a terrible influence.

“I would love that.” Genuinely, half sitting on the bed, tangling their fingers together. He looks tired, fraying around the seams and hinges. “Really. I would.” Leans to kiss him. “But we made an appointment and the anticipation will make this evening so much better. Cross my heart.” Grins.

Richie chokes softly, almost politely on his coffee. “What am I anticipating,” he asks, “specifically?”

The grin turns into a smirk and he stands, pulling Richie’s hand after him and turning around to guide his fingers to the waistband of his jeans, then under so he can feel the lace. “That.” He says. “But you don’t get to see until we’re home, Trashmouth.”

Richie’s brain short circuits in a way it hasn’t since Eddie first told him he loved him because that, he’s certain, did happen for the first time in the Town House, after—. He whispers “You fucking dick,” in a voice that’s twisted like a wrung-out washcloth, and it doesn’t occur to him until later, when they’re literally in the cake place, that Eds looks tired, and that thought pushes the rest of it away. 

~

It’s still raining as they’re leaving, piling back into the car, and Richie says “Do you want to get Chinese food?” because maybe that’s better than cooking, and there’s a place that does gluten free — even their egg rolls.

“Mm.” He nods, because he wants nothing more in the whole world than exactly that, leaning on him when they walk. Looks up at him, smile soft and sleepy. “Can we eat in bed and just, not talk about wedding stuff for an hour?” Because he’s so tired, brain so full of colour schemes and tastes and suits and guest lists and he just wants to say fuck it. Fuck it. “Would anyone be insulted if we just invited the Losers and Peg?”

“If you want to invite just the Losers and Peg, then I’m one hundred percent onboard. Also, I think Peg would be flattered,” Richie says, “also she said she had some more of my shit she wants to give me that I left with her when I moved to LA.”

By the time they get their food and get home, it’s dark. The rain has let up, though (or, maybe, it’s turned to snow again) and the bed feels chilly until they both get under the covers with takeout containers. It takes some maneuvering but they eventually get everything set up and Richie laughs and says “Should we pull one of these blankets over us and do a blanket fort like we used to?” and then feels stupid for saying it, but also fond. Fond of the stupid fucking kids they used to be. 

“Yes please.” Eddie says through a mouthful of egg roll - not gluten free, because he’s too tired — already slumped back against the pillows still fully dressed. “Take my pants off for me and treat yourself to the view.” God, even the wink is tired, but he’s still smiling.

And holy shit, Richie has _totally forgotten_. This morning feels like it happened to somebody else, and he is in the middle of a forkful of chicken fried rice (so glad to put something into his mouth that isn’t coated in sugar — at least not palatably) and he has to remember to swallow. 

Wordlessly, he sets the carton down and leans over him, fingers in his hair. He does look tired, Richie thinks, and wants to fix it. As he draws back he grabs Eddie’s wrist and takes the next bite of his egg roll, snorting with laughter as he ducks to avoid any repercussions of his sneaking thievery, and then he does undo Eddie’s pants with a soft “lift your hips.”

Underwear — like, no, they’re— black, lace. Richie gets a strong flashback to college and girls wriggling out of too-tight jeans in darkened dormrooms, and weed and tequila and the sticky slide of lip-glossed mouths over his ear. His mind says _women_ , and his mouth says “Wow,” and he finds himself, suddenly, a little breathless.

“Best of both worlds or what?” And now Eddie’s grinning, leaning up on his elbows to look down at him, a look that very much says _I told you so_.

“I was thinking I’d get white ones for the wedding, but you know. I wanted your approval first.” Because he’d tortured himself about this. He’d overthought both sides of his duelling personality for nights and nights flicking through the internet and wondering. Wondering if Richie would like it, if he’d laugh, if he’d think it was weird (and he probably does). Eddie had loved this in college. And part of it, sure, had been rebellion against Sonia - a rebellion he’d only become truly aware of once he’d read his own diary - but it had been a rebellion against himself as well. Like come on, Kaspbrak, how far can you push it before you chicken out? How deep in the sewers can you get before you’re freaking? It had turned out to be pretty fucking far, in the end.

And then college was over, and Ma got him a job, and Myra had happened, and then—.

Eddie wriggles his hips and his eyebrows in tandem, a laugh caught in his throat.

Richie feels caught a little, between the levity on Eddie’s face, and what might be uncertainty in his dark eyes, but also between what he, Richie, is feeling, and what he wants, and what Eddie thinks—…

Because okay. 

Because… no, _really_ this is… it’s heart-stopping, kind of, and he’s got this ache that has nothing to do with his fucking dick. For once in his life he takes a second, then slides down further — upsetting a thankfully empty carton of long-gone sweet and sour chicken balls — and he pushes Eddie’s shirt up and presses his lips to his stomach, and then his hip, where the sharp line of it slides from beneath dark, complex lace and Richie frowns against Eddie’s skin, even as he can feel the hard slide of his own cock against the mattress. 

Fingers, cold still from outside and rain and driving, brush the inside of Eddie’s thigh and he looks up at him and says “Is this— I mean you know I don’t…” _fuck, how to put it?_ Sometimes he wishes he could call his friends as like, a lifeline, before his trashmouth says precisely the wrong thing in such a, quite honestly, gorgeous fucking moment, but that’s not how reality works. 

And Eddie says, “Fuck you, I like it you selfish prick.” But he’s laughing through it, fingers in Richie’s hair, squirming under Richie’s kisses. “I _told_ you. I did drag in college.” Pulls, so they’re face to face, so Richie can see he’s not joking. “It’s okay. It’s not purely _for you_. Jesus, you’re self involved.” He kisses his nose to soften it, runs his hand down the back of Richie’s neck and freezes, looks worried, suddenly. “Unless— unless you don’t like it and _I’m_ the one being a selfish prick? In which case I can take these off and immediately burn them in the fireplace and we can just forget this ever happened.”

“No, no, no,” he protests, “I like it, I like it.” And then, the admission, to himself. “I like it. I just... okay.” He thinks _later_. He’s got to stop fucking _talking_ when they’re supposed to be _doing_ something far more exciting. So he sets about sitting up to pull Eddie’s pants off completely (dragging most of the covers down as he does so). Richie pulls a face. “Pretty disappointed about the lack of garters, though, I’m not going to lie,” but he’s grinning, and his eyes are riveted to the fact that beneath all that lace is not a woman’s body, and he follows the curvature of it with something not far off from tenderness. And then he lowers himself down between Eddie’s legs to drag a hot, open-mouthed kiss over the line of Eddie’s cock beneath the fabric.

“God, save something for the wedding night.” But it comes out shaky with relief and sudden lust, hips tilting up, hands still in Richie’s hair. “You know if I wear a garter, traditionally, you have to take it off with your teeth while blindfolded, right?” Because he’s seen that in wedding videos, of receptions, a groom on his knees and— they probably shouldn’t, not in front of everyone like that. “It’s okay?” Eddie needs the reassurance, partly because he’s _so_ tired, and vulnerable, and stupid, but mostly because he can’t shake the nerves of it. College Eddie would have been fine. College Eddie would have laughed his eyeliner off at the way forty year old Eddie trembles with a man he loves. “Richie?”

“Mm, bad idea. I wouldn’t stop at just your garter,” Richie says, low and Voiceless, against Eddie’s hip, and cups his balls beneath the fabric and contemplates how he might fuck him and keep these on, without ruining them. In the end he opts for pulling them down just enough to expose his balls — also, it holds his thighs together nicely. Richie looks up at him and shakes his head a little. “Obviously, stupid,” he adds, obviously it’s okay, and slides his hand down over Eddie’s cock, drawing his foreskin back before he drops his eyes and very, very gently, ghosts his mouth over his frenulum, and then his tongue.

“You’re stupid.” Eddie tries, but it gets kind of garbled at the feel of spit and warmth and oh fuck. Without his legs spread he can’t put his feet on the mattress, can’t rock his hips up into the waiting heat of Richie’s tongue, fingers tightening in his hair as his back arches. This was certainly not something that happened in college. He’s not sure how to tell someone - especially one's fiancé - that the blowjobs he’s received from him have been the only blowjobs. And therefore the best fucking blowjobs. He honestly knows he would think that regardless of how his life had turned out. Regardless of whether he’d gotten head constantly or not. He wonders, fleetingly, thighs tensing under Richie’s hands, where else he could put his mouth.

  
Richie, meanwhile, takes him in his mouth, a little less than halfway, and then surfaces. “ _Don’t_ eat all the food while I’m going down on you,” he says, wild grin. The second time he takes him in his mouth is deeper, slower, drags his tongue up the underside of his dick.

“How the _fuck_ would I eat while you’re— oh.” And he just… floats off with it, letting his head fall back, eyes closing to hide the fact that they’ve rolled back in his skull to seek out the fever dreams where this had happened, nebulas exploding in his bone tired limbs. “Richie.” Silk and satin and mink soft, one hand still tangled at the back of Richie’s head, the other brought up so he can bite at his own thumb.

Because it’s too good. It’s too much acceptance and love and want and attention and—. He whimpers, flexes his toes, moves his hips back against the mattress and then forward again rather than levering them up like he wants to and—

Actually, maybe it’s okay. That he’s— restricted isn’t the right word, because he doesn’t feel restricted. That implies that he’s trapped, can’t get away, would _want_ to get away and he’s none of those things. It just so happens that he can’t really move, and honestly (if he were being really truly cross his heart honest) tonight he kind of just wants this. Wants Richie taking the wheel, taking control— taking care of him. Because he’s had to do it all himself up to now. Had to be brave and organized and healthy and bright and— well, it would get too much for anyone.

Somewhere, maybe, Richie knows it. Not in the bone-deep, physically embodied way that Eddie feels it, but in the tired lines around his eyes and the way his monologues are, occasionally, too clipped to be just their usual banter. So he takes his time with it. He actually really — learning new things all the time — really loves giving head. He loves the sleek, heavy, warmth of Eddie’s cock in his mouth, on his tongue. He loves the salt-taste of precome and the way his thighs shake under Richie’s hands. He likes the way his balls tighten, he likes all the little ways he knows when Eddie is close. 

Holding him in one hand as he sucks, palm sliding, slick with his own saliva, over the length he can’t cover (his gag reflex, unfortunately, isn’t great), he rubs his thumb over Eddie’s inner thigh, smoothes his palm over his stomach, runs it along the side of his ass. Fuck, he’s beautiful. And strong, in spite of his smallness. He drags a little at those lace panties, just to remind himself that they’re there.

Eddie, above him, just breathing these little… god, it’s because of the underwear, he swears, but he’s making these mewling noises which would otherwise (any other night. Any other night where he had energy, could do fucking anything) be embarrassing, eyes no longer closed but lash framed and directed down. At Richie. And he loves him so much and he’s just so, so, so tired of being stressed out and handling everything and juggling so many balls and— he can’t remember his last wedding being this stressful. He can’t remember much of anything about his last wedding. And huh. Ain’t that a kick in the head.

It takes him less than five seconds of complete, utter, wonderful pleasure to decide he doesn’t actually care. Eddie’s grip loosens and softens in Richie’s hair, still there, but running through now rather than holding.

“Fuck, I love you.” He manages to sigh before all the slack warmth goes tight and hot through his navel. “Richie, fuck—.” And then he comes, not hard even though he thought— but maybe he’s just too tired. A gentle flow rather than a sudden rush, and tonight that’s somehow better. Makes his legs go so numb he can’t feel the ache in his calves from running around the yard and running around the mental office where he keeps all his to do lists.

“Sorry.” A little guilty. Just a touch, sheepish.

Richie swallows, swallows, pulls him gently through it, and then sits up, fixing his glasses, wiping his mouth on the inside of his wrist. And he’s hard, but not in any urgent kind of way, and Eddie… _Are you okay?_ Richie thinks, but feels like if he says it, that something will break, snap under the pressure. That feeling scares him a little. He pulls himself back up to the headboard beside him kissing his shoulder through his shirt, kissing his temple. Instead, he picks up a carton — the one that has his fork still in it and pokes at the food before he says “You’d tell me if there was something else I could be doing, right?” he asks, because he is trying. He is. He’s been at every meeting and they’ve talked about colours and flowers and cake. And they still have to find somewhere to actually have the wedding, and nice buildings are expensive, and suddenly— 

“We could like… just be here. You know?” Richie begins. “If we… sorry, I know we said we wouldn’t talk about wedding shit, but if we were here, and it was just us and the Losers and Peg, we could still… still have everything, but it would be just— like,” he shrugs. “Here.” And maybe it’s the worst thing he could have said, but it settles something, some tension along his shoulders he hadn’t realized he was carrying. 

“Yes, I would.” Eddie confirms, leaning against him, opening his mouth for a forkful of food. “It’s not even— fuck, it’s not even like— it’s stressful but it shouldn’t be as stressful as my brain is making it out to be.” Rests his hand on Richie’s knee as he chews thoughtfully, head on his shoulder, eyes closed. “Yes. Yeah. I think that’s a smart idea.” And Eddie turns his head to kiss the underside of Richie’s chin, where he’s all stubble and soft. “I’d like that.”

And it’s like the weight has been lifted from Eddie, too; he kisses him again, shifts to curl around his side properly, arm over his middle. “Thanks, dickwad.” With the same tone as ‘babe’, ‘sweetheart’, ‘Trashmouth’.

And that, finally, prompts the thing Richie was going to say earlier which is, “You know I don’t _miss_ women, right? I’m not... I know this was for you and, yeah, bigger than that, but you don’t have to... you never...” he takes a breath. “I never feel like we’re lacking anything, that’s what I’m trying to say. Except garters.”

“Are you trying to tell me you _don’t_ want me to return the favour while wearing makeup?” He doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t move, just snuggles in tighter and squeezes him. “It wasn’t about you missing women. I just— I don’t know. Neither of us have had it like this, before, you know?” Eddie heaves a sigh, rubs a pinch of fabric of the sweater Richie is wearing between forefinger and thumb. “I just thought—,” yawns, then lifts his head to look at him, “if it’s us, forever, which it is, why not explore everything?”

Richie sets the food aside, kisses the corner of his mouth, his forehead. “That sounds good,” he says. “Starting tomorrow.”

~

Richie didn’t realize how sick of his _own_ material he would be by the time he actually gets around to memorizing it (easier, when you’ve written it yourself), nor did he realize that it would be approximately 11,000 times more nerve-wracking to go up onstage in front of a live audience and tell them something _true_. 

Steve, by February, is long gone, and he’s found (with Eddie’s help) another PR person named Steph who has more metal in her face that even Richie thought possible, but who is also efficient, nice, and filled with that recent-graduate drive. She also likes classic rock (bonus) and treats him like a human being (further bonus), which is better than he ever managed to find in LA. Steph’s hair colour (under her backwards baseball cap) changes every time Richie sees her and he and Eddie make jokes about how she’s the nicer, more talented version of Steve, and she has never once called him eighteen times in a row just to shout.

There’s some jokes in this show he has debated taking out over and over (and then put back in, over and over) but finally just decides to omit any of the wedding-related stories because they haven’t actually told the others yet. Mostly because Richie’s still getting up the nerve to call Bill and ask what he wants to ask. He knows he’ll have to call soon, though, because he feels like Eddie’s getting anxious about having enough time to do all the save the date, RSVP shit which, fair. Richie has never been good at elaborate plans. He’s trying.

“Let me get through this show,” he promises, “Then we’ll call.” It gives the Losers two months and a bit to clear their calendars (and they’d better).

And time is fucking crazy, and suddenly it’s his opening night. Night one of three. He wants to throw up (and he comes very near ) but doesn’t. He’s been there before; the very first time he did live standup, and he likes to think he’s come a little further since then.

And Eds is here. Eds who he hasn’t let read a single word of the gig because he wants him to actually enjoy the show and not be making note of any lines he doesn’t get exactly right, the spots he ad-libs. Mostly he wants him to watch it without any of that misplaced longing he felt when he came to see Richie in New York, with Myra, before he knew him again. Before he _remembered_.

It’s Eds he thinks about as he stands backstage with Steph who’s a kind of grounding presence. She’s nervous, but holding it together beautifully. The lights go on, the music starts, and she gives him an enthusiastic double thumbs up (solidifying her solidarity in bisexuality harder than anything else) and he kind of grimace-grins at her like _here goes, please be ready to scrape my remains off of the stage floor if I get killed out there_ and goes out.

And then it’s stage-lights in his eyes, and a mic in his hand and somewhere out there, Eddie. Richie takes a breath, eyes on the floor, and the nerves fall away. He looks up.

“So my partner likes to bring me out to these fancy restaurants. Me.” He says, spreading his arms a little to underline the fact that he should not be allowed anywhere near a fancy restaurant. 

Laughter from the crowd. Richie smiles, and it is genuine.

And the thing is, he’s fucking funny. And the thing is, Eddie can’t help drawing comparisons to what he’d seen with Myra in another lifetime and what he’s seeing now. Richie is still slouching, but he’s making eye contact and he’s grinning and he looks so fucking happy.

Eddie thinks; _I did that_. Eddie thinks; _I’m so fucking proud_. Eddie thinks; _god, I’m fucking gay._

Richie is… being Richie. Cracking jokes about all of them. Eddie is going to make sure he remembers every second of this, every second that has him crying with laughter. He wishes he wasn’t alone but maybe it’s better. Because he can text Richie during the interval: _I miss you_ and _you look a+ Trashmouth top marks_ and _I’m gonna blow you in the back seat after_ in quick succession, bottle of house red at his feet.

Richie gets those texts almost immediately during intermission, standing in the back with Steph, practically vibrating with excess nerves and excitement because “It’s going really well,” she says.

A text from Bev comes in, just a shot of her and Ben’s TV (the show, streaming live because he has some cred. in the business and someone felt he was worth filming (Also, it’s a smaller venue than Richie would normally do, and also Steph pushed.) Richie texts back _I look awful_ but this is immediately followed by Eddie’s promise to ‘blow him in the back seat’ so he immediately mentally takes it back.

He’s had a drink before the second act because this is the one that took the longest to write. This is the shit that matters, and he agonized over it for months until the words felt right.

Back onstage the applause sounds roughly the same as it did when he first began, so vast numbers of people haven’t left during intermission. Promising. “You’re still here, great,” he says to the audience, before the clapping dies down. And he thinks about Bev and Ben out there, somewhere, watching, and Mike who promised to watch but doesn’t really use text, and Bill… well… he doesn’t know what Bill is doing, but he thinks about him anyway. And Stanley, who would have, if he could; and Richie finds the courage to start the second part.

He begins in earnest:

“You’ve probably noticed how I just refer to my partner as ‘my partner.’ And how I’ve done all these fancy rhetorical acrobatics to make _that_ ambiguous. Yeah.” He’s pacing a little, all jittery nerves. “And that's because it’s easy to, um, sort of fly under the radar, that way, sometimes.” A breath, he goes still, just for a second, and then: “But what’s up, Sacramento; if you’re just joining us, for some reason, my name is Richie Trashmouth, and I am bisexual as fuck. Thanks, yeah, get excited, I just figured out how to feel that myself…” He laughs a little, because a cheer has gone up and it does — it fucking does feel _good_. 

His eyes search the rows of people in the darkness of the house. “He _is_ out there,” he gestures vaguely to the audience, “Somewhere. If he hasn’t walked out in disgrace…”

From somewhere to Richie’s right-ish, Eddie whoops — sharp and familiar and Richie’s heart, honest to god, fucking soars. “Oh no, there he is.” And when he laughs it’s elated and genuine, sweet in its sincerity. “Anyway, I definitely wouldn’t be standing here without him, so…” Richie trails off, a little too much earnestness, eyes searching but unseeing and half-blinded by stage lights, in the direction of Eddie’s voice. 

Christ. Christ, he loves him.

And applause goes up. Little by little. And this time for Eddie, even though more than half the audience can’t see him. For Eddie, and for the fact that surely most of them have felt that at some point — that love and gratitude for another person — and Richie lets it rise and rise to its crest before he brings it back, before he returns to the script. 

That, he thinks, he hopes, conveys even a fraction of how much he fucking means it — for Eddie’s support, his infinite patience while Richie fucked up again and again, and will probably fuck up later. Eddie who will forgive him anyway, because he knows Richie is trying his fucking best. Eddie, who Richie fucking loves so goddamn hard; Eddie who let him find himself, along the way.

In the dark, Eddie acknowledges the love sent his way by the people around him, suddenly shy. Hunches down in his seat and chuckles when Richie makes pointed statements about him obsessively cleaning, about him going running (it’s a good bit, Eddie thinks, watching him carry a conversation they’d definitely had a few months ago, jogging on the spot and stopping, starting again, dependant on whose Voice is coming out), because the couple next to him and the girl in front of him turn to grin into his face. It makes him blush but more than that it makes him so, so goddamn proud. Like his chest is full with it, like he’s drowning in the creek but this time he’ll stay underwater.

Eddie cannot wait to kiss him afterwards.

And then Richie is leaning against the mic stand, at the end of his bit, staring out into the audience and over exaggerating his gasping for air.

“— and this is the kid who needed a fucking aspirator. Running fucking laps around the cabin like ‘fuck you, I’m the Roadrunner now, beep beep’. What the fuck.” And Eddie’s pressing his face into his hands and curling down on himself and moaning with laughter. Because yeah. Yeah, thats his voice, and the Roadrunner impression is spot on (it is not, he thinks, the beep beep of the Losers, but he appreciates the shout out and knows the others will too).

And Eddie cannot _wait_ to kiss him afterwards.

~

Richie, after is fucking jittery, still. People find him at the stage door in the end, lighting a shaky cigarette and then wishing he hadn’t stepped out to smoke because people he actually kind of recognizes from other shows — LA shows — are there. To say hi, to ask for a signature. He crushes out the cigarette, barely touched, and then he’s talking to some folks who even drove down to see him. Someone actually tells him she likes his new material better and Richie feels this ridiculous, overwhelming sense of gratitude and relief because god, what the fuck would he even do if he couldn’t make people laugh? For a _job_. Sometimes life is okay. Sometimes it’s really fucking good.

And then Eddie’s there, hanging back as people begin to drift off — back to their cars or to bars or restaurants. “This one’s trouble,” Richie says to Steph who tells him he’s on his own and disappears back inside with a wave to Eddie and a quick grin.

And then, “Hi,” Richie says, and breaks into a smile. 

“Hi.” Eddie is grinning so wide that if Bill were here there’d definitely be fenceposts and baseball bats and fucking nunchucks involved; program tucked under his arm as he puts his hand on the back of Richie’s neck and pulls him down for the kiss he’d been promising himself for pretty much the entirety of the show.

“I am. So proud. Of you.” Mumbled against his mouth, each punctuation mark a peck of his lips. “So. Unbelievably. Proud.” Pulls away. “You _finally_ nailed the Roadrunner noise.” But he knows Richie will know what’s behind those words, knows Richie will get it because Richie always gets it — he’s no slouch. Holds his program out, says “would you sign my boobs, Mr. Tozier?” and cracks up at himself, not even entertaining the anxiety that Richie will smell wine on him, the way he used to when he’d get home from bars to Myra.

Richie cackles with laughter, pushes him in the shoulder, and then follows him a step, catching hold, slightly shaky hand against his neck, his cheek, his shoulder, sliding down right right arm to the wrist. “I’ll sign your cast arm, lover,” he says, slipping in his own double-meaning into their conversation. “Thank you.” For coming, for being Eddie, for all of it. “Where is that back seat adventure you promised me?”

“In the back seat, obviously.” And then he punches him, on the bicep, with the arm that had been set in plaster all those years ago. “Seriously I’ll need you to sign my program. It might be worth something.” Then; “shit, you think people would buy your underwear on Craigslist?” He’s still chuckling - good chucks -, when he tips his face up for another kiss, always seeking Richie like a flower to the sun, the hand on the back of his neck coming around to cradle his jaw.

“You were so funny, tonight, Richie. Much more you.” And he doesn’t want to tell him that he was late getting to the stage door, that he’d beaten more or less everyone out of their seats because of the sudden desperate need to cry. Purely for the fact that this should have always been how it was, and all he has now to comfort him is that it is how it is. “My man.” Affectionate but goofy, knowing it’s silly, pulling a face at him before twining their hands together like the plaits he thinks Bev must have worn in her hair as a girl.

In Richie’s pocket, his phone is going off buzzing through texts that he suspects are from Beverly, but he ignores them, for the moment. He kisses him again, squeezes Eddie’s hand, and then shifts and puts an arm around his waist instead. “Let’s get out of here,” he says. “Let’s go home.”

There is no back seat adventure because, as soon as they get in a taxi, Eddie realises that there’s another person in the vehicle. He settles instead for resting his hand just this side of dangerous on the inside of Richie’s thigh. And it’s quiet, the lights of the city flashing past them, Eddie letting Richie savour what he needs to. Letting him remember how much of the show had fucking landed. Because it was a lot. He was fucking there. 

Twenty minutes from the hotel he calls ahead and orders champagne to be sent to the room, a fruit basket and club sandwiches, thumb rubbing against the seam of Richie’s jeans, causing Richie’s stomach to flip, over and over — and not in an unpleasant way. And he is always and fucking forever grateful for Eddie’s foresight, and thought to order _food_ because suddenly he is starving and, above all of that, it’s sweet. It’s a nice thing to do. It’s the sort of thing fucking Stan would have done, only he would have done it at twelve, and none of them developed that kind of consideration until they were much older.

“Do you want me to come to the other shows?” Eddie asks while Richie unlocks their hotel door, flicking through the program and holding it up on Richie’s headshot. “Look! So cute!” _Cute cute cute!_ He thinks, a distant memory, edges of his mouth twitching on a grin.

Richie scoffs at his picture and says “Shut up,” pushing the door open and stepping inside. And then, as always, force of habit, it’s lights, before he ventures too far into that darkness. “You can come to the other shows,” he says, because of course he wants Eds there, “But you’re not allowed to tell me where I fuck up, afterwards, nerd,” he teases. And then, in a 1950s barker Voice: “It’s all about the improvisation sweetheart.”

“I am absolutely going to tell you when you fuck up, fuckface.” Eddie is still smiling, still thumbing through the little booklet. “These promo shots, whoo boy.” Closes it and fans himself. “Whoever’s marrying you is one lucky son of a gun, I’ll tell you that for nothing.” Then he spots the sandwiches and makes a little ‘ohh’ sound, picking one up by the crust to inspect it. “Sandwich?”

“Uh, I was promised a blowjob,” Richie says, but he is also already picking up a sandwich, shovelling it into his mouth in a way that is partially trying to be gross to counter-act Eddie’s compliments, but also partially because he’s legitimately starving. Through his fingers, to literally keep the bread in his mouth: “Didn’t you also get champagne?” he spots it, b-lines.

“Eat, _hydrate_ ,” Eddie steps in front of him to shield the alcohol, “ _then_ champagne and celebratory blowjobs.” He blinks at him, watches him slurp tomato skin into his mouth and wrinkles his nose. “I take it back. You’re gross. I’m sleeping in the bathtub.”

“Mm!” Richie swallows with effort. “No, don’t do that,” he says, entreating, pulling him back. He turns and obediently goes to get a glass of water, raises it to him like _See? I’m being responsible._

“You have tomato seeds on your chin.” Dryly, the corners of his eyes crinkling with just— so much fondness he could burst. “It’s a hot look. You should totally go out there wearing sandwiches tomorrow.”

Richie wipes at them, only vaguely self-conscious. “Maybe I’ll go out there wearing drag. Really own it, you know?” He sits down on the edge of the bed, kicking off his shoes, shrugging out of the blazer he’s wearing.

“I didn’t bring my lingerie. Hard luck.” Eddie sticks his tongue out at him, then goes to him, pads of his fingers ghosting along his jawline. “You really do look good tonight. Bev texted and said you were feeling bad about it.”

Richie winces, then laughs it off. “I don’t know why I tell any of you losers anything,” he says, but he says it fondly. Bev, always fucking looking out for them. They’re lucky to have her. “Anyway, I guess I’d better get used to being the ugly one, if I’m going to spend the rest of my life standing next to you. Towering over you. Like Lurch, in the Addams family.” He schools his features into Lurch’s signature frown. It fades though, as he looks up at Eddie, eyes flickering between his, marvelling at how dark they look in the lamplight. “Thanks for coming,” he says, and fucking means it.

“Lucky for you Lurch is my absolute favourite.” He leans down to kiss him then, “Of course. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’m sorry I didn’t bring you flowers. I should have.” Eddie just hadn’t thought about it, looking down at him like this, he looks particularly lovely. Alive, alive. He looks alive. So Eddie pats his face, like Richie always does to him, grinning. “Drink your water. I’ll pour you some—,” squints over his shoulder at the bottle, “oh, shit. I’ll pour you some Cristal.” He will remember to send this particular invoice to Bev, in the morning.

“Jesus _christ_ ,” Richie laughs. “Is it? No, don’t, I’m going to fucking bathe in it.”

“You are _not_.” Eddie frowns at him, two fingers tipping his glass towards his mouth, eyebrows raising. “Hydrate or you’ll feel like shit and think you did shit tomorrow morning. Don’t look at me like that, I know you.” He does. He knows him. He knows him, sometimes, better than he knows himself. Like they’re somehow fused together.

Something else Ben had said to him at the wedding, both of them waiting for Bev and Richie to come back from smoking,

_“I feel like we should have seen this coming before me and Bev, Eds.” And Eddie had squinted, confused, up at him. “You know. He blinks and you blink. He touches his hair and you’re doing it a second later. You walked out of here earlier and he was on your tail like a dog, man.”_

_“Not_ your _dog.”_

_“Nah, he’s more a family pet than a tracker. I think Richie could probably spot you wherever you ended up hiding.”_

Eddie blinks the memory away and presses his mouth to Richie’s forehead instead, suddenly overcome as he often is with emotion. With longing. Because he misses him even when he’s right in front of him.

“What?” Richie asks, catching that look in his eyes just before Eddie kisses him, catching hold of the front of his shirt. “What are you thinking? Your vibe is weird, man, what’s going on?”

“I miss you.” Gentle, into his hair, kind of through his nose. “I know you’re here but— and it’s been a year, of being here, with you. Like with you with you but—. I don’t know.” Eddies face twists, so he hides it in the top of Richie’s head. “Sometimes I feel like I’m going to wake up and everything will be like it was before. Or that this is all some— fever dream and I’ll wake up in Derry and none of it ever happened and I’ll get the chance all over again.”

And Richie knows this feeling. He’d been haunted by a feeling like this for weeks after Eddie showed up at his door at the Town House, and then vomited up half of Derry’s runoff water. But still he says “What do you mean?” because now is a weird time to think thoughts like those, and he— he’s half afraid something has happened, like Eddie’s noticed something off or strange or— something Richie hasn’t. Like an alteration in the beat of his heart, or the way the air smells. Something Richie — even though he’d been caught in the deadlights (he shivers, thinking of it, all the hair on his body standing on end) — something he hasn’t sensed.

“I don’t even really know.” Eddie sighs, nose firmly buried in Richie’s curls, breathing in deeply. “You ever get this—. Like, I know I love you. I know that every single second of every single day, but sometimes I _remember_ and then I just.” His fingers spasm at the back of his head, stroking down his neck to hold onto him tighter. “Like tonight. When you were onstage. And it was you and I’m here and I’m not _dead_.” Breathes out again. “It’s like I feel lucky and I feel cheated. I didn’t get to see you graduate or have your first ever show, or be there for your twenty first, or even your thirtieth or your fucking fortieth and—. Now, with you here, it feels like I should have been.”

“We couldn’t possibly have known what would happen when we left Derry,” Richie says. “And most of us didn’t even have a choice about leaving. And I don’t know, Eds.” He shifts, pulls him closer, one thigh between Eddie’s legs, just for comfort — just so they can be as close as possible. “I mean, I think we always— I had you in my — it sounds so fucking sappy, but, like I look back now, and I can see that I was waiting. Just biding time, waiting for you to show up again. You were with me. I think maybe we were all— in each other’s hearts all this time, you know, but you…” He sighs, because in a lot of ways he feels like that waiting, the waiting he didn’t even know that he was doing, caused him to only half-live some things. To only half-feel. “You’re here now. Maybe… maybe we wouldn’t have appreciated it as much, if we’d all stayed together. If we’d all grown up together, maybe we’d take it for granted. At the same time, I fucking _wish_ I’d been there to stop you fucking marrying that woman, I wish I could’ve changed, I dunno, a thousand things, Eds, but that would’ve changed you, too. And me. And maybe we’d be totally different people now. Maybe, I dunno, maybe we wouldn’t have worked that way. If it had gone different. I don’t know. Does that make sense?”

“It does.” Eddie shifts, legs over Richie’s, to sit on his lap, feet still on the floor to take his weight. “It just feels like there’s this huge part of me that wants to make up for the lost time. And then I remember that I’m fucking forty and I’m probably going to seriously injure you by trying to wrestle you.” He laughs, softly, lips pressing in just under his ear, lost in the memories of them both. Of Derry. Fucking poisonous, beautiful, wonderful, murderous Derry. Derry that had robbed them of so much. “And then I think, no, fuck that, because if I want to think of myself as a fucking twenty year old I will. And _then_ I see this in the mirror,” gestures to his face, vaguely, “and it takes a minute to see the fucking— what my face is now and I— like, fuck, can I afford Botox? Would I have a reaction to that?” Eddie trails his fingers, so gentle, over the tick of Richie’s pulse. Feels the skin, the life, the blood and sinew and bones holding him together. Wonders what exactly it is holding them both together. And is love enough? Is this enough? Will Eddie be enough? “Ben kept— saying these things at the wedding. And they were lovely, and I love that he said them, because they were true and I just— should have been braver. Should have said to Ma, ‘no, fuck you, I’m staying.’ ”

Richie laughs a little, without really feeing it. “Don’t get Botox,” he tells him, “I like your face. Also I’m concerned about what Botox might do to your ability to suck cock the way you do, incredible talent by the way.” But he lets the joke slip away, watching Eddie’s eyes, watching him look. He furrows his brow a little. “Okay, fourteen year old me is saying ‘Fuck yeah, fuck you Sonia Kaspbrak’, but that’s it, isn’t it? We were young and stupid and brave as hell, but we were fourteen. And I think we both knew… we both knew, somehow, that neither of us had any real power. We could kill a murderous fucking clown, but we couldn’t really disobey our parents. Not for big things. And this was a big thing. And if you want to keep going back and back like ‘should have said fuck you, Sonia,’ or ‘shouldn’t have kissed Richie’ or ‘shouldn’t have ever made friends with Bill because then none of this would’ve ever happened to me’ or ‘should have stayed inside my house my whole life in a little plastic bubble, eating pills three meals a day,’” Richie shrugs “You could. You could do that… Or you could look at us now. Right fucking now, Eds.” And he touches his face, he kisses him long and deep and runs his hand up Eddie’s thigh to his hip, his waist and says, against his mouth “And then look me in the face and tell me that we haven’t won.”

“That’s my _point_ , though.” Thick, vibrating through his mouth, on his tongue. “We have won and I wish we’d won sooner.” But he’s smiling now, moving to straddle Richie’s hips, hands on his shoulders as they kiss.

And kiss and kiss and kiss and Eddie shivers — the overlay negative of Richie he knew and the Richie he could have known and the Richie he knows all at once in his mind’s eye, under his thumbs, through his wrists.

“We’re everything we were back home, and the in between, and now. And because of that sometimes I get— flashes. Of what could have been. And it’s good and it’s right and it’s so real and then—.” Kisses him again, and again, and again. “I know that you— it’s hard, or it’s been hard, because it’s all new for you too and then tonight the fucking—. You did that for me, too. You did it for me as well and I can’t— like you said, before, all this frenetic energy and I don’t know what to do with it because I want to punch you in the face and bite you and fuck you and just never stop kissing you and all of those things would eventually end up hurting one of us so we’d end up in hospital with fucking— broken dicks or arms or something—.”

Richie laughs, because he’s kind of following the thread. “I think I saw a first aid kit in the bathroom if you wanna try some of those things and see if any of them help. Watch the glasses though, I like this pair.” And then he stands up, steadies them both, because he half unseats him. He stands up and then wraps Eddie up tight in his arms and holds on, and it’s simple and hard and honest. Because maybe they make things harder, or try to handle them in adult ways, or maybe they think that the stress and the heartache and the unfairness of their lot should be theirs to shoulder, always, but Richie knows, he remembers, that sometimes it was just his friends’ arms around him, Eddie’s arms around him — sometimes it was just that simple, instinctual touch — that helped. He presses his face into Eddie’s hair and smudges his glasses. They dig into his face, but he squeezes his eyes shut and doesn’t pull back. “Christ, I love you.” And he doesn’t know if it helps now. He doesn’t know if this is just tonight or everything, or the wedding stuff, or work. Or the fact that Eddie is here, now, instead of working on said wedding stuff or work back home at the cabin, he just knows that he’s profoundly grateful to be here, tonight, like this, with Eds, and the show, and some very expensive champagne, but mostly, like always, with Eddie.

“I definitely do not want to break your dick.” Eddie grumbles into his shoulder, eyes shut so tightly he can see fucking stars, both hands fists in the back of Richie’s shirt. Then, like they’re remembering it together, “can we somehow pour the champagne and not move from being like this?” Because he cannot even entertain the thought of letting go of him. Cannot think about being away from this warmth, safety, security, belonging ever again. Somewhere, distantly, in the back of his mind he hears a gentle guitar, and thinks; home. This is home. Right here. Anywhere with Richie. “Just— god it’s sounds so stupid because we’re getting married— promise? You’ll stay? Cross your heart.”

“I’m not going anywhere, not if I can help it. And if I can’t, I’ll find my way back to you anyway. You want me to let go to cross my heart or just stay like this a second longer? ‘Cause this is nice, too.” And then, “I’m not going anywhere, Eddie. I don’t want to. I’m here for keeps. You believe me?”

“I believe you.” Shivering, a little, hands clenching (if possible) tighter than before. “Cross my heart, then. Over my back.” Lifted his head to touch their noses together, not kissing but simply breathing the same air. “Swear on me.”

Not on the moon, the inconstant moon.

Richie’s eyes flicker open, too close to really see him, but wanting to see him anyway. “I swear,” he says, voice pitched low, but his own. No one else’s. And does — crosses Eddie’s heart, over his back. And then he kisses him softly, almost tentative.

“I love you, Richie.” So tender, no jokes, no hiding. Just Eddie. Sun-freckled and open, impossibly young and so old all at once, thin fingers finally letting him go and stepping away with the kiss still lining his mouth, hiding away in cracks and bitten raw lips, sliding over his arms and elbows to catch Richie’s hands in his own.

“And I am so, unbelievably, incredibly, head-spinningly proud of what you did tonight. I can’t even—.” Squeezes tight, “verbalize what I want to. And I haven’t forgotten my promise to suck you off, don’t worry.” With a grin, leaning up to kiss his nose. “That is still very much the plan. I just needed a moment.” Eddie doesn’t let go to get the champagne, simply stretching his body across the room to grab the bottle, looking at Richie thoughtfully. “Is it sacrilege to drink this from the bottle?”

“Sacrilege is the way I roll, baby,” Richie says, and it’s like he’s fucking drunk already — just on Eddie’s words, how genuine they are. He feels warm and light, like he’s already drank most of that incredibly fancy champagne. It sparks through him, ignites his veins, his nerves. He keeps their hands linked. “You hold the bottle, and I can try to get this cork out without blinding one of us,” he says, and then “Do _not_ let any of it spill onto the carpet, we have to drink all of it.”

“Gonna pour it over your fucking head.” Eddie laughs, then holds the bottle as tight as he can, his body slotting easy and comfortable against Richie again. Because it is easy. And comfortable. And it’s Richie. And if this is the rest of his life then he can live with that. If he can hotel hop and then go home to the trees and the mountains and his kitchen which is truly _his_ now, their bed with the nice pillowcases, the garage where the Cadillac is probably missing them, the yard where he’s planted rosemary and put up a bird table (for Stan, for Stanley, he keeps a journal now of the avian life which has made their garden home), the porch where he and Richie wrap up in scratchy blankets and drink hot chocolate… he’s fine with that. More than fine.

~

After the show, after they’ve gotten home and had a proper sleep in their own bed they finally sit down to call the other Losers to invite them to the, now, very small wedding which, Richie hopes, makes up for the fact that they’ve been planning it for _months_ without telling them about it. He thinks, maybe they’d just wanted to keep it to themselves for a little while. 

Now feels right though, he thinks. Feels both right and late, and he hopes they won’t be mad, and he keeps thinking about Bill anyway, and what he’d said at Ben and Bev’s wedding. _Why didn’t you tell any of us, Rich? We knew already._

Since then, since that conversation at brunch, things have been… mostly just quieter between them. The hug before they left felt more genuine than the hug when they’d arrived, but maybe they were just trying so hard to make it that way that it felt better, with no real conviction behind it. And it’s hard, when you don’t see one another every day, to fix these cracks and fissures. It’s hard to remember — even when you’re the one that’s hurt — where all of those little hairline fractures are, and they float to the surface like unpleasant reminders in the most unlikely of places. Like dead things. Dead kids.

Richie tries to think of something else. Thinks instead about how he hates planning weddings, and how Eddie has been doing an unfair share of it, but also that’s partially because he won’t totally let Richie plan on his own either, (which might be fair, too. Richie thinks). And then, suddenly, two days ago it was _should we change our last name?_ and Richie was stumped.

“To which?” He’d asked.

“Tozier-Kaspbrak,” Eddie rattled off, in that uncanny ability to just speak for minutes at a time without drawing breath or somehow ever stumbling — gifts of being a motormouthed kid and:

“That won’t fit on a mailbox,” Richie had said. Like that was some kind of legitimate argument. Their mailbox doesn’t have their names on it anyway. It doesn’t need them. That’s, Richie thinks, what house numbers are for. And Eddie had seemed uncharacteristically sincere about his retort to that excuse and Richie had spend an afternoon feeling sort of sheepish and seriously considering the importance or ridiculousness of name changing (especially when there would be no fucking kids to even do whatever the hell people are supposed to do with surnames, these days) and then had bitten the bullet anyway and, yesterday morning, dropped the forms for legal name change between their coffee cups at the breakfast table, still left blank for them to fill in the name change, and Richie’s signature below.

And Eddie had stared at him, eyes bright and dark all at the same time, bruises starting to form along his waterlines, tight lipped and still angry. And maybe it was the lack of sleep (it was definitely the lack of sleep) that had made him so sensitive about it. Like _that won’t fit on a mailbox_ was _fuck you, actually, I regret saying yes._

Now, the forms are still waiting for Eddie’s signature on the breakfast table, and Eddie feels kind of guilty. Richie had made him sleep, last night. Had wrapped himself around his body like a python and refused to let go even when he himself drifted off. So that Eddie couldn’t get back up, nerves jangling together like sleigh bells, to clean the kitchen for the fourth time in a week. So he couldn’t drag the freezer out and mop behind it again. So he couldn’t sit up with the laptop glow bathing him until the sun came up. Because Richie has been waking up to Eddie asleep, sat up in bed, one hand pressing down the R key until ten pages are full.

That’s how he knows Richie gives a shit, and he shouldn’t have been so hurt over him just trying to be funny.

So Eddie fills in the name change. Richie’s signature is a wide looping scribble, enormous next to Eddie’s chicken scratch when he finally adds his onto the bottom line and dates it and seals it.

“I’m sorry I’ve been a dick.” He says as he joins him in the living room, handing him a steaming cup of coffee. “I haven’t been sleeping well.” But he knows Richie knows. He knows. “What’s on the agenda today?”

“You are a dick.” Richie snorts and says, “I was gonna say ‘but you’re my dick,’ but then it started getting complicated, anatomically.” He reaches for him, to bring him down to sit with him on the couch, relieved just at that touch. Eddie hasn’t showered yet, which is unusual, and his hair smells un-showered and Richie buries his nose in it and inhales anyway, and it’s more comforting than the usual shampoo smell.

He thinks _I was thinking we could get a larger mailbox_ but decides to just leave it alone.

He thinks that Eddie used to have nightmares, before this — the wedding planning — but the stress of all the rest of it has made them worse. He thinks about the way he shifts and the sounds he makes and the way he clings like he’s drowning — and Richie _hates_ it. He kisses his ear.

“What if we do good things today? Just for one day, which is call the others and properly tell them we’re doing this.”

Eddie says “fuck” and then, rubbing the heel of his hand hard into his eye until it squeaks, nods. “We should. I keep forgetting they don’t know, yet.” And oh, how could he have ever been angry with Richie? He feels stupid, now, drinking coffee with Richie’s mouth against his temple. He muffles a yawn against the inside of his elbow and stretches, and then, very much Not Like Him, says: “I don’t want to do anything that requires getting dressed or leaving the house.” He can’t even remember the last time he went for a fucking run. He’s just too tired. Feels it deep in his bones the way he sometimes feels gut wrenching pain in his dreams just before he jerks awake and gasps to fill his stomach with air.

“I’ll call the Hanscom household. I don’t want to deal with Bill right now.” The truth is Eddie always, always forgives Bill the second cruelty tumbles out of his mouth. Because it’s Bill. And he loves him, even when he’s angry. Even when he’s so angry he could spit venom and grey water all over him. “I know he didn’t mean what he said, but he still said it.”

Richie groans, and then takes a breath and then says what he’s been thinking for weeks now, even as it still churns darkly in his gut. “Okay, about Bill…” he bites his lip hard, stares down into his coffee like it’s going to make this easier, but of course it doesn’t. “I’ve been thinking about this whole… like we’re only going to do this once — or, I mean, _I’m_ only planning on doing it once, your first time doesn’t count,” he says, and smiles at him, teasing him, but gently, like there’s bruises. 

“But Bill, he… I’m pissed at him, for what he said. About you, mostly — the rest of the stuff, I get. The stuff about not telling him, when I was younger — but we’re only going to do this, once, and if I didn’t…” sighs, harsh, “If I don’t ask him to be best man, I’d never fucking forgive myself. Like, he’s fucking stupid, and he’s said things about you I’m probably _never_ going to forgive, and I don’t know how to _know_ that at the same time as I know that he’s the best friend I’ve ever had, and he’s stupid as hell, but he’s still _Bill_ , you know? And I wanted… I wanted to ask him to, but if you don’t want me to, then I won’t.”

How, Richie wonders, does he make sentences for a living?

Eddie’s answering blink is slow and confused, leaning to rub his hand over Richie’s back, solid and comforting. “God, don’t—,” he shakes his head, once, hard. “Don’t fucking put that on yourself, Jesus. He’s Bill. If he’s not best man then who would you have, you know? It’s _Bill_.” Slots his palm against the back of Richie’s neck and squeezes. “I’ve forgiven him, so. You know. We all say fucked up things when we’re hurting and— well, you know what he’s like. Like he said, ‘Eddie’s my fault too’. It’s not against _me_. It’s against _himself_.”

Richie rolls his eyes, like that doesn’t fucking hurt like he’s been gutted. “Yeah, I know, but he’s still fucking being a total fucking cunt about it, I’m not giving him a free pass. Not—” _Not when it comes to this. To you._ “Anyway who’s yours? Is that how this works?” Things he should probably know. “Do you have one?”

“Richie…” he sighs, squeezing again. “Come on.” Because he can’t let this one go. Not this. “Talk to me about this. Please?” He hadn’t had a best man at his wedding. Ma had said it wasn’t fair, that it should have been Daddy, but he wasn’t there. And honestly he couldn’t think of anyone, anyway. 

Now, he thinks, Bev. Ben. Mike. 

Stan.

“I’m not having a best man.” Shakes his head gently, rubs his thumb over Richie’s skin. “I’d want Stan.”

Sometimes it hits harder than others and Richie winces, looking away. “Yeah,” he says, very soft. “Yeah.” He swallows. “D’you ever get scared? I mean not of, like, actually being married, that’s not scary, that’s like the best thing, ever, but of… you know, everything we do— all of these steps we take, we keep moving further and further away from who we were as kids. Like… we could just go into the kitchen and cut our hands open again right now and make another oath, that it’s just gonna be you and me forever and it would mean the same thing, right? And… I guess what I’m trying to say is we start doing all these things — officially, legally; changing our last names, and even Bev and Ben’s wedding, it all… brings us so much further away from Stanley and… I mean, would he even know us anymore?” 

It spills out of him. Most of it he didn’t even know he was thinking until now.

Eddie says nothing. What he does do is get up, bare feet against hardwood and then tile, returning with his bird book. Hands it over, wordlessly, and then says: “He’d know us the same way we know each other. The same way _all_ of us know each other.” And then he thinks about what Richie is saying, feels his heart thrumming hot in his ribs, and sits back against the couch. “The only reason we need to do this, legally, is because I don’t trust anyone else with you. If anything happened, and you ended up in hospital.” Quiet, so quiet, barely there. “Everything else— fuck it. Seriously. Fuck it. The only things we’ve ordered are the flowers. We could— fuck,” he thinks for a moment. “Ask Mike to marry us. If he went online he could be ordained to do it. Bev could make our suits. Fuck the cake and all that shit. Seriously, Richie.”

And Richie looks at him, really fucking looks — Eddie’s bruised eyes, the tension along his jaw and at the corners of his eyes where he has smile lines whenever Richie makes him laugh. And he wants it, he does, because it feels right, and because he thinks it would mean less finding Eddie cleaning the kitchen at four in the morning like a sleepwalker and having to basically bribe him to come back to bed. “Yeah, but, you’ve done so much already, though,” he says, “All the work you’ve put into it and I—” _Haven’t._

It’s not that he hasn’t wanted to, he does, he just… he’s felt out of his depth, out of his element, and at first Eddie had liked being on top of everything — the same way he likes organizing and the way he reads fucking ingredient labels on fucking laundry detergents for christsake. “I just want things to be okay,” he says, because lately he’s been worried about Eddie and sort of at a loss for what to do, because he’s never been good at taking care of himself, let alone other people. “That’s all. I want to fucking— I want to just do this, and then _be_ married so that we can go back to the way it was. Only, better, like you said. Like all that legal stuff taken care of… I sound like an asshole—”

“Hon…” Eddie sighs, heavily, scrubbing his hands up over his face. “Please stop taking shit that I’m doing to myself on yourself.” Because that’s what it is. It’s nothing to do with the wedding itself. It’s the fucking— fear. The constant fear that they won’t get there, that he’ll wake up one day and Richie will have changed his mind, that something somewhere will take them away from each other. The indecision is just a facet of that.

“Look, how about—.” Pulling his hands down and looking down his nose at where Richie is. “You take on your suit, the alcohol, and the music. We can just— two tier cake, two flavours, whatever. Flowers are done. We’ll ask Mike to ordain. We can do a potluck for food and everyone can bring what they want. That takes most of it off our shoulders.” And then he says, “off _my_ shoulders. Where _I’ve_ put it. Not you.”

“You’re gonna let me do the music,” Richie says, and he’s starting to smile genuinely, but then he gets back to serious. “If you’re really, genuinely… if that’s what you want I will be the best ever at suit, alcohol and music. Eds— okay.” He punches him softly on the shoulder. “Hey. This is good. We’re in this together. Like always. We’ve got this. Right? You and me. And you have to let me help you fucking clean this place, you’re not allowed to do it entirely by yourself. So no ‘You don’t clean the forks properly, I’ll do it,’ if everyone’s going to be coming here. Fair?”

“But you _don’t_ clean them properly. Also, ouch.” He furrows his eyebrows at him, and then smiles too. “Fine. Fucking, fine. Fair.” Shifts so that he’s touching him again, the lines of their legs pressed together, his head still tipped back over the sofa cushions. “I just want— everyone together again. And to be yours.” And maybe it’s the first time he’s said it like that, because his face goes hot, and he closes his eyes to hide from Richie’s facial expression. “Properly. Legally and shit. Shut up.”

“Man, I _knew_ you were gonna say that,” he says, about the forks, but then Eddie’s still talking, saying it’s fair, that it’s fine, and that’s _so_ much better than before. Than whatever they were trying to do. And they just keep coming in closer and closer to their everyday lives — no more venue, no more catering company, no more ‘should we invite this person we barely know but who’s related to my aunt’. It’s just them now, him and Eddie and the Losers, and honorary Loser Peg. It’s them and this house, and their own food. It’s the two extra bedrooms (so everyone could stay) finally getting some use. It feels right. And then Eddie says ‘I just want to be yours,’ and Richie drops his eyes to the bird book. Flips through it softly, coming to rest on blue heron and says, softly to the page. “You’re such a fucking sap, Eds. I want to be yours, too, and not just legally. But, I mean,” he shrugs. “You already have me.”

“And you have me. You have done for years.” Sitting up to kiss his ear, then blowing a raspberry against it. “Call Bill. Invite him up for a weekend or something. I think we’d all feel better, seeing each other.” And he thinks, not for the first time, that it’s the distance that’s the problem. When they were kids it had been so easy to keep tabs on each other, together all the time. Now there are miles and miles of misunderstandings sitting between them.

Eddie hooks his fingers under Richie’s chin, makes him meet his eyes. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

Eyes searching, Richie says. “If you keep saying nice shit to me, you’re gonna run out before we have to say our vows, and then I’m gonna look like a motherfucking bastard when all you have left are complaints. Gotta save some of it.”

“I’ve already written them.” Leaning to rest their foreheads together. “I started when I asked you.” Because he had, and maybe he’d started beforehand. Maybe he’d started decades ago. He doesn’t know anymore. Runs his hand over the back of his head. “And sometimes it’s just nice to be nice.” Then, kissing him quick, Eddie gets up. “Ring Bill.”

“Fuck you, are you kidding me?” Richie asks. “That’s not fair, you never said!” But Eddie’s walking out of the room, leaving Richie and the bird book alone on the couch. “Can you believe that?” he asks the book, which doesn’t respond, but Stan would have sided with Eddie and told him he should have started ages ago anyway.

~

Eventually, Richie does ring Bill, after about three quarters of an hour and another cup of coffee. The last texts they have on his phone are about the Skype call they set up what feels like a hundred years ago, back when he still hadn’t seen Eddie back yet. Richie considers for a moment, and then erases those. And then he calls.

His very first instinct is to hang up, but he’s not a coward, he reminds himself, and if Bill doesn’t pick up, which is his biggest fear, he thinks, (or that he will ask and Bill will say no, and that really will feel irreparable, in some way. Like the way there’s still a scar on the bone in Eddie’s arm. Richie has never asked him if he made the break worse — if it took longer to heal because of him.)

As it rings, Richie goes out onto the porch even though it’s still cold and he’s only in a sweater. He lets the door close softly behind him, wishing he had a cigarette and then remembering that he’s quit (again).

“Richie, hey.” Across the country, Bill is relieved. Has been going over and over the brunch in his head asking himself why on god’s green earth he had said what he’s said. Remembering their faces, constantly, and Stan’s and Georgie’s too. “Hey. How are you, man?” The noise of him closing the laptop echoes over the airwaves, muffling the noise of him doubting himself. Doubting himself for years.

It’s still, Richie thinks, so weird to hear Bill’s voice without the stutter. But then, sometimes it’s weird to hear Eddie’s without the breathlessness, too. It’s weird to hear the confidence that’s seeped into Ben’s, and the softness into Bev’s. 

“Hey, yeah, good,” he says, too much relief. Absently, he brushes the light covering of frost melting off of the R and the E he’s engraved on the deck forever ago. “What, are you working? It’s Sunday,” he says. It also, somewhere in there, gives Bill an out, but, Richie thinks, he won’t take it.

“No, no.” Is the reply, his chuckle gentle and warm, an idea of the boy he used to be. “I uh— I’m in therapy, now. Not speech. Normal therapy. I like to uh— make notes. In case I forget what I want to say. What’s up, man?”

Richie doesn’t know what to say to that except it’s weird to be reminded, again, that Bill’s not somehow stronger than the rest of them, like Richie thinks maybe they all believed as children. Not immune to trauma or its repercussions and maybe, Richie realizes all at once, it’s on them a little, too. That no one reached out to Bill because they just assumed he was stronger than they were. They just assumed he wouldn’t want or need the help.

 _Fuck_ Richie thinks, and feels the heart-plummet of that realization. “Therapy,” he repeats. “That’s good. I would, except, I wasn’t confident I could find anybody who wouldn’t throw me into a straight jacket, and then straight into a padded room.” He thinks _beep beep Richie_ and switches ears. “Because of the… clown thing, not the…”

And _Because of Georgie_ he thinks. _Not Pennywise._

“Oh god,” Bill laughs again, soothingly, “I don’t— god, I don’t talk about that. I don’t talk about d-Derry.” The one word he still struggles with, stutter coming and going and coming again in the year since they’ve been there. “We uh— we talk about guilt, and responsibility, a lot.” He lets the implication hang between them, the silent reaching of fingers holding olive branches. “And Georgie. And Stan. But not— that.” Not the clown. The clown, he’s accepted, is dead.

“Come on, Rich. You’re not calling me for no reason. What’s happening? Is Eddie okay?” With sudden, shooting fear.

“He’s okay,” he says, fast, and it’s the concern in Bill’s voice that cools some of the anger he’s held for so many months now. Because he _knows_ Bill cares about Eds, he knows he does. And Eddie’s right, of course, and fucking Bill was, too, when they said things they shouldn’t have at the table that morning, at Ben and Bev’s — things that rang true all the same. “Yeah, no, we’re okay.” He thinks ‘olive branches,’ sort of unbidden, but it makes sense. He thinks _still insists he sees the ghosts…_ “I’m calling because I’m wondering if you’re free in May. Late May…” Swallows. “And if you’d be my best man for this wedding thing me and Eds are gonna have.” 

“I can make myself free.” He says, absent minded, before Richie’s sentence hits him between the eyes and stuns him stupid. 

“You’re kidding.” But it has a note of laughter. “You’re fucking kidding, man.” Then, laughing, full throated and genuine. “Fuck, man. Yeah. Yeah. Look, email me your gift list and—” Silence again, thoughtful, tapping his fingers on the desk, as it connects again. And again. “Are you sure? About the best man thing?” Because Bill knows, he knows, he’s been horrible. A cunt, as Richie had so succinctly put it.

And Richie says “Bill,” and there’s _weight_ behind it. 

There’s Richie’s arms around Bill’s waist, riding double on Silver and clinging for his literal life, as Bill took hills at the speed of sound. There’s Bill’s hands on his arms, and his hands saying “Look at me, Richie, look at me. It’s not real, it’s not real,” which was the mantra he himself repeated, that he still thinks probably stopped that fucking Paul Bunyan statue from cleaving him in two. There’s the fact that, at twelve, Richie would’ve died for him and probably still fucking would.

But he doesn’t know how to concisely say any of that, nor does he want to bring much of it up — memories of That Summer, and a thousand days before and after it. So he says “You’re my best friend,” and fucking means it, and hopes that that’s good enough. He thinks _So this is me, telling you first this time._

A beat.

“Thanks, Richie.” Because like all the other Losers (and fucking finally) Bill understands what’s under those words. “You’re mine too.” Because he is. All of them are. And then— “Hey, Rich? I’m sorry. I am. I’m really, really fucking sorry for all of it.”

He exhales, shaking suddenly, now that his big question is asked, is out there and answered and suddenly he’s got several months-worth of emotions that don’t know where to go. He thinks about Eds, this morning, saying that he’s forgiven Bill (even if Richie still thinks Bill shouldn’t have said it, shouldn’t even have _felt_ it, but he did.) He thinks that none of them can change it now, even if they’d like to.

And some of this apology, he thinks — no, he _knows_ is about what Bill said to him at the brunch, too. The things he already apologized for. And remembers that he told Bill that he wasn’t going to waste any more of the time the six of them had left, now; thinks about how he meant that, too.

So: “Me too,” he says. For all of it. And for not telling him at forty or fourteen. For not telling him at sixteen, either, when Eddie’s calls and letters had stopped coming and Richie was even more impossible than ever for an entire Summer wondering _where?_ and _why?_ and _doesn’t he miss me?_ and _did someone else…?_ He remembers that now, too. Sorry for the distance, the coldness, the walls he’s thrown up around him and Eddie when he didn’t know what else to do.

It’s a lot. 

Richie says “Asshole.” And then they both dissolve into laughter, and it feels a whole hell of a lot like relief.


End file.
